N. N. (Nikolai Nikolaevich)
Punin:

An Inventory of His Diaries and Correspondence at
the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center

Creator:

Punin, N.N. (Nikolai
Nikolaevich), 1888-1953

Title:

N.N. Punin
Diaries and Correspondence

Dates:

1910-1939

Abstract:

Diaries, conversation books,
correspondence, and other papers document this art scholar and critic's
relationship with poet Anna Akhmatova, as well as his experiences as a
humanistic Russian intellectual living under a Communist régime.

RLIN Record #:

TXRC99-A9

Extent:

1 box (.42
linear feet)

Repository:

Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center,
University of Texas at Austin

Nikolai Nikolaevich Punin

Nikolai Nikolaevich Punin was born on 28 Nov. 1888 into
the family of a Russian army medical officer stationed in Helsinki. After
graduating from the classical gymnasium at
Tsarskoe Selo he attended St. Petersburg University from 1907 until 1914. Punin
began a career as an art scholar and critic, writing for major St. Petersburg
periodicals and co-founding the Department of Iconography in the Russian Museum
of St. Petersburg.

In 1917 N. N. Punin married Anna Arens, a physician;
they had one daughter, Irina. After the Bolshevik Revolution he continued his
work as a scholar and critic in St. Petersburg, editing as well the journals
Iskusstvo Kommuny and
Izobrazitel'noe Iskusstvo.
Punin's life from 1920 on was marked by repeated investigations and arrests by
the Soviet secret police, but even so he was able to maintain his career with
some success.

In the middle 1920s Punin began an affair with the poet
Anna Akhmatova which lasted until the eve of the Second World War. In the final
years of his life with Akhmatova, Punin was arrested a second time; finally
after the Second World War, in 1949, he was arrested and sent to Siberia, where
he died at Vorkuta on 21 Aug. 1953.

Anna Akhmatova

One of the century's great poets, Anna Akhmatova was
born in the Ukraine, near Odessa, in 1889. As the young wife of the Acmeist
poet Nikolai Gumilëv, Akhmatova began writing poetry and quickly established a
major reputation. After the couple's son Lev was born in 1917 Akhmatova and
Gumilëv divorced; in 1921 Gumilëv was executed without trial by the Soviet
authorities.

Increasingly repressive political and cultural policies
made it impossible for her to publish her poetry in the years down to the
Second World War. After a period of cynical rehabilitation during the war
Akhmatova was again forbidden to publish in the years preceding Stalin's death
in 1953. Only in the final years of her difficult life did Akhmatova find it
possible to publish her work without serious official hindrance and to enjoy a
measure of public recognition in her homeland and abroad. She died in 1966.

The Punin papers at the Ransom Center document N. N. Punin's
stormy relationship with Anna Akhmatova, as well as his treatment at the hands
of the Soviet security apparatus. In a broader sense they give a remarkable
view into the inner life of a humanistic Russian intellectual in the early
years of the Communist régime, concentrating, as they do, in the years 1915 to
1926. The papers comprise four series: diaries, conversation books,
correspondence, and other papers.

The first series includes ten diaries kept by Punin. Nine of
these cover the years 1915 through 1925, with the tenth containing entries from
the summer of 1936. The diaries are not a systematic record of daily
activities, but rather impressionistic jottings of Punin's preoccupations,
social, cultural, and emotional. In a few cases entries have been heavily lined
through, and in places leaves have been torn out. Related material--for
example, thoughts originally recorded elsewhere--have been inserted, evidently
by Punin himself, at various points in certain of the diaries. Inserted into
the diary for 1923-24 is a small ornamental fish (cut from silvered paper and
with a piece of yarn for hanging) attributed to Vladimir Tatlin.

Series II embraces the three "conversation books" found in
the Punin papers. These are small pocket-size address books or calendars of
appointments which Anna Akhmatova originally employed to record telephone
numbers. In time they came to be used (quoting Jennifer Green Krupala) to
record "short 'conversations' between Akhmatova and Punin, in which Akhmatova
would make an observation and Punin would answer." These conversation books
contain entries from the spring of 1923 to the summer of 1926.

In a third series is found the small body of correspondence
related to Punin and Akhmatova, of which the largest fraction--21 pieces--is by
Akhmatova. The majority of these are to Punin and are frequently without
salutation or date, though they were generally written in the years 1923-1926.
Other recipients of letters from Akhmatova include Olga Sudeikina, Mikhail
Zimmerman, and an unidentified "Dania."

Of the nine pieces of correspondence by N. N. Punin, four
(two letters and two telegrams) were written to Akhmatova. One postcard to his
wife Anna Arens Punina ("Galia") and two postcards to Evgeny Arens date from
his 1921 imprisonment. There is also a draft of a letter to Arthur Lourie, as
well as a poignant request to a Cheka officer following his 1921 incarceration
requesting the return of a book and his suspenders.

Galia Punina is represented by three postcards to her
imprisoned husband in 1921, plus a 1926 letter to Akhmatova and a 1924 letter
to "my dear friend Pusenka."

There are also single pieces of correspondence from Lev
Arens, Anatoly Lunacharsky, and Zoia Arens Punina. Punin's father N. M. Punin
is represented by a telegram of 1916 telling Nikolai that his brother Leonid
had perished in the war.

The last, and smallest series, "Other papers," includes two
documents written by Punin during his imprisonment of 1921, an essay in draft
form by Punin on "unification of the left," together with two graphological
analyses of Akhmatova. Also included are one of her 1910 poems in manuscript,
and Galia Punina's manuscript medical notes on the birth in 1923 of her
daughter Irina Nikolaevna Punina.

Punin left the majority of his personal papers with his
daughter Irina Punina. Concerned that if those portions dealing with his
relationship with Anna Akhmatova went to his daughter they might well find
their way into Akhmatova's hands (where they might be censored), he left these
in the care of his last wife, Martha Golubeva. Martha, in turn, passed these
materials on to her daughter Nika Kazimirova at her own death in 1963. Nika did
give a portion to Irina Punina but retained certain of Punin's diaries as well
as his correspondence with Akhmatova. In 1974, when Konstantin Kuzminsky was
seeking to leave Soviet Russia, Nika (Kuzminsky's ex-wife) sold, with the
assistance of Sidney Monas, the Punin materials in her possession to the
University of Texas to fund Kuzminsky's emigration.

--------------
The Diaries of Nikolay Punin,
1904-1953. Edited by Sidney Monas and Jennifer Greene Krupala.
Translated by Jennifer Greene Krupala (To be published in the fall of 1999 by
the University of Texas Press; for the present project page proofs were made
available through the generosity of Dr. Monas and the U.T. Press)